Patience Park

1.

There was an incident with an intruder this morning, first thing. I was in bed, staring at nothing when there was a key turning in the keyhole, and, naked, I jumped up and grabbed my buck knife and the door opened to a groundskeeper staring at me. “Piss!” he blurted, and slammed the door without an apology. WTF? The bearded, peeping chiromaniac chose the wrong door—think positively—the communal kitchen was what he was supposedly aiming for to do some repair work, the next door over—and he should’ve known. Well, most likely he did know but somehow his monkey mind made himself forget because the mind is always playing tricks, parlor tricks, so maybe, possibly, he couldn’t help it. How many times have they wandered into someone’s empty studio, surveying everything for a moment before retreating? … As if this is a game they play because they’ve got a key.

I found the guy later and it was uncomfortable—I was dressed and he made his stupid apology and then I waved my hand like it was fine as I carried my groceries inside and locked the door, now a false comfort.

We’ve been violated and spied on more than we know; we wonder while they plot. I’m going to the park across the street, Patience Park, they call it. Less than a two minutes’ walk and I’m walking under the snow-covered archway. I’ve had opportunities to move to another part of town, get a place with a kitchen and be closer to work, but I declined and now I know why. It’s actually more than a park: it’s the city’s botanical garden, or arboretum, and it’s right across the street, though, when I first arrived I had no idea it was here as it lies on the street behind the complex. But then, through glimpses and sheer curiosity, I began to explore the surrounding neighborhood.

I encounter an older man out for an early walk.

“Good morning,” he says.

“Mornin’.”

“Do you have the time?”

I check my cell. “Quarter past eight.”

“I appreciate it. Forgot my watch.”

“No worries.”

“Have a nice day,” he says.

“Same to you.” Nobody asks for the time anymore.

Patience Park, it’s just this large green expanse extending west (although now it is blanketed pristine white from the snowfall) and I used to assume it must be someone’s private property. Days of boredom passed and it kept creeping back into my mind, all the trees, the groves, and especially the little lake here that sings out from across the street.

December. The beginning of the winter season, and still the whole valley is covered with striking oranges and reds and yellows, and the light hits everything just right, making it seem like a perpetual dusk, allowing for the purest thoughts. So I enter this—this manicured wilderness of transplanted trees and man-made streams to find what I’ve been missing: a place to nurture this soapweed head, a place that is simply alive, existing naturally. I walk its paths as part of it, soaking in nature in all of its forms, memorizing the placards below every kind of tree, describing their origins and scientific names.

Just call me Nobodius trausti.

Had it not been for the hardy Austrian Pines of Europe and Asia Minor, the casinos might be creeping into my thoughts instead. The Bristlecone Pine, Pinus aristata, the oldest living known thing, has given me my youth back. It keeps doing it, too. Patience Park gave me my so-called life back. The Sweet Gum of the Witch Hazel family secures me, just like the red-brown English oaks with their high upturned branches, pointing all thoughts toward a guiding influence. The Honey Locust of the pea family; the Purple Robe Locust with little pink flowers; the red-twigged Dogwood; Fannies Garden full of Purple Leaf Sand Cherry and birdhouses; large Colorado Blue Spruce, or “Glauca”; the gazebo covered in honeysuckle—all embrace beauty and simplicity, while I deal with this complicated toilet bowl existence. Think happy thoughts. For Autumn.

And that’s how nature stops FML thoughts. It’s another home, here all along, like a gift I was saving for a time when I felt the most lost. I’m wandering into the Kleiner and May groves, completely enthralled, and before long I find Herman’s pond and more possibilities bloom, like feeding the ducks; it’s like finding those untapped areas of the imagination, like a glorious reservoir of sanity that also serves as a nice temporary distraction.

There are all kinds of waterfowl at Herman’s pond in the winter to which this also must’ve been a welcome discovery, a life made instantly better, fuller, just by spending time within its boundaries. Not nurturing and depriving this lifeline would be a sin, not to mention when I took Autumn here last winter; and that day when we fed ducks together, holding hands like a real couple, was one of the happiest days in recollection.

She’s coming over this evening.

A man is coming my direction. He’s dressed in almost identical gear as me: black jacket, black hoodie, blue jeans, Doc Martins, even down to the brown gloves. He stops and says hi, looking me in the eye once. It’s like looking in a mirror.

“Mornin’.”

“Do you come here often?” he asks.

“Sometimes.”

“Do you know of, or ever heard of a trail that leads from this park, under the road, onto more trails on the other side, that eventually lead to a long canyon?”

His frosty mouth air blows into my face, and I haven’t heard of a canyon—I’d be interested in that too, I guess.

“No. But it’s a big park. In fact, there’s a map under glass up near the herb garden.”

“Thanks. Too bad it’s not on a GPS. Weird, huh? Have a good one.”

“Yeah.” I need to look at that map.

You came here to become a memory, to wither away like a husk. Today, think better of your past. You’ve left your family and friends for this because for some reason it made sense that going north meant being more alone than any other direction.

A string of unpleasant experiences—not to be delved into right now—can prompt just about anything. Quite simply, I realized I’d been living in a lie and began to let go. That’s when I found Autumn Wick, my new symbol of hope. It’s too early to recall how I got here or why I came here without love in my heart—I’ll get into those haunted memories of married life soon enough.

Regardless, what I never thought possible again has happened and now the dam has broken and I’m gushing, overflowing, for in my solitude no one but Autumn could’ve shown me how to love again. So then is it any wonder I’ve become so indebted to her?

Passing a woman with a Bluetooth earbud she says: “It really is a blessing. Trevor is at home taking care of Taylor. Sure he’s happy with it … uh-huh … and he’s happy I’m pursuing my career. Even if it means that I’m away on frequent business trips for the bank.”

Okay well, I also work for a bank, just not today. No overdraft fee reversals, no direct deposit advances or frozen cards or failed refinances; no courtesies for monthly service fees, non-sufficient funds, and excess activity fees. Those with bad credit are better off keeping their money in a coffee can so you don’t have to worry about creditors getting a legal order to debit your account. If you’re strapped for cash, you don’t have to give your account number to internet loan companies who’ll sell it to fraudulent institutions until you’re so overdrawn your account is charged off and sent to collections. Please, get a coffee can. This is what I tell folks: Use cash. The economy won’t collapse any further. Nobody can see the forest for the trees and for God’s sake the forest is in flames.

Crazy snowy outside.

I can feel my nose running so I pull out a tissue and cross the bridge where the muskrat resides. Autumn: the only person I’ve wanted to know since I arrived two years ago. We’ve said I love yous and moved on … yet what is it about her? I want to describe it and do it justice. She loves life because everything is shiny aromatic new; the kind of innocence that makes you want to hold them forever and flog and castigate yourself at the same time. Example: she’s agog about running. She runs half-marathons: thirteen—hurts just to think about—miles. Recently, she explained how marathons are twenty-six miles because of some Greek dude who ran twenty-six miles to reach a city on an errand. And her legs, they’re toned, honey-colored, and her hair is long and dirty blonde and she’s twenty but she thinks for herself. She sees through the illusion.

Across the street is one of those vehicles that salt the roads. The man behind the wheel looks like he loves his job, just grinning like a happy person does. When Autumn laughs she covers her mouth and I know she won’t always conceal that smile. In fact, one day she’ll be a superiorly confident woman. As sure as I am unsure, she will leave me behind. Sadly, it is the only mutual understanding that our rare silence can know.

Remembering part of the last conversation we had when I said, “Consider the lilies of the field ….” And against my better judgment, “A bonafide loser, I really am.”

And Autumn, she was saying all spacey-like, “I’m talking to music.”

I don’t know what I am to her these days. Perhaps I’m the older friend who she’s interested in only because I’ve lived a little longer on Earth, and once she sucks all life’s experiences out of me she’ll run away on her own errands, part of her own quest for knowledge. She goes to college in New York now, though this town was once her home as much as it isn’t mine.

All I wish to do is laugh with her. But that’s another lie.

The science fiction bestseller that’ll win her over is a big part of the frustration, though, it’ll be worth it when it’s finished. And one must avoid people to be alone, so one can, as Ezra Pound says, “make it new.”

The flurries come down in blinding waves. He comes into view around Herman’s pond and on the far side: the Pigman is rooting around in the snow-covered shrubs over there. Down on all fours, his snout to the snowy earth, like a delicious root is what he seeks. His black buttoned-up blazer is spotless, the starched white collar protrudes enough for a red bowtie to complete the piece. He even wears pants. He rights himself and looks right at me, straightening the folds of his suit, brushing off the snow like dandruff from his shoulders. With the lake between us he snorts loudly in my direction. It’s a snort that echoes across the land, but I’m not intimidated—I don’t wish to speak to him. I turn and walk back the way I came….

Heaven must be finding the one person you love, leaving this world, and spending eternity with them, your souls freed with your dearest physical traits living on—if only they felt the same! Death ends the dream, solves the problem instantly, and nothing else happens.

Just Autumn.